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Why everyone hates the IT department

IT workers are treated with thinly veiled contempt in many organisations - Tom Brewster finds out why

Traffic wardens, tax collectors, lawyers, (ahem) journalists... the list of occupations that inspire contempt among the public they serve has a new addition: IT support staff.

“Everyone hates the IT department,” an executive with storage and data-recovery firm EMC told us recently. But why is there so much antipathy towards a department that is, after all, designed to help and support workers?

Often interred in the basement, trapped between the rack servers and a bank of screens, the IT worker is cut adrift – both physically and psychologically – from the rest of the company.

Afforded little more respect than cleaners, the widespread belief that IT isn’t an essential part of an organisation is belied by the fact that companies need IT to function. It’s the first department to be blamed when something goes wrong, and the last to be credited for success.

IT is still seen as a bit of a dark art, and some like to cultivate that

So why is IT the most maligned department? Why is there such a disconnect between the enterprise and IT for so long? We try to find out.

A breed apart

One reason for the disconnect between IT and the rest of the company is that IT actually takes pleasure in being different. Like any clique, many in IT enjoy being part of a close-knit gang with their own quirky traditions and interests.

“IT is still seen as a bit of a dark art, and in some ways, technology people do like to cultivate that,” says Katherine Coombs, IT director at outsourcing provider buyingTeam. “Technology is a thing that they don’t need to build into the business too heavily. Sometimes, it suits people for there to be a clear line between IT and the rest of the business.”

In some respects, separation isn’t only desirable, but necessary. Other departments don’t need to know what’s keeping things ticking along in the basement. Why should the accounts team care what’s keeping the datacenter cool, or how the storage arrays are organised? They only want the equipment they use to work.

“Does the person who is handling the backup tapes, and programming bits and bobs behind the scenes need to integrate with the rest of the business? Probably not, because that’s an internal IT operation,” Coombs adds.

It’s when the two are forced to come together, however, that the classic worker vs IT relationship begins to unravel. The service desk is where the first seeds of antipathy are sown. The scenario is a familiar one: worker A has put in a request to IT as his desktop has collapsed under a pile of error messages, none of which he’s bothered to jot down before repeatedly clicking OK.

He waits for a couple of hours with no response, eventually calling IT to figure out what’s going on. A disgruntled IT worker, distracted from his gargantuan list of tasks, says he’ll check who’s dealing with it, since it isn’t in his remit, before telling worker A that someone will be up soon.

IT staff on TV

When that someone doesn’t appear instantaneously to conjure up an instant fix for his ailing machine, worker A sits back in his office chair and begins spewing out vitriolic curses about IT’s inadequacies to workers B through Z, who join in with their own woe-filled yarns. Thus, employees’ hate of IT is further fuelled by this unjustified ire.

Andrew Corbett, director of the UK IT Association and an IT department worker with more than 25 years of experience, has seen his fair share of broken relationships with workers.

In some cases, he found employees refusing to use the name “helpdesk”, claiming the “help” prefix didn’t apply. “There’s quite a lot of antipathy,” Corbett says. “There is the feeling that IT is almost like a priesthood, living in an ivory tower far away and you have to go to them on bended knee. The sad thing is that they usually mean well.”

What’s more depressing is that in the majority of cases, it isn’t the fault of either IT or the employees – it’s the fault of bureaucratic, convoluted, impersonal systems installed by management, which are left to spawn imbroglio after imbroglio rather than be replaced.

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Comments

I work in the Information area for the Royal Navy Headquarters. One way around the problems we have had is to nominate a member per floor. They then have time allocated to walk the floor and ask users about any problems. Users know to speak to that person, helping with trend spotting with individual divisions. Also they get to know the people on the floor and who is difficult because they are not too bright on IT or those that when they ring know what they are talking about. I also feel that too many IT managers are employed for their technical skills and less for their ability to manage (which is the same across most businesses). Management is a skill in its self and needs to be taught and developed. On tip, each business area should nominate a IT dep rep. They have a assigned IT dep member and they meet regularly to discuss problems etc.

I found that some IT departments, create the problems themselves, lets be honest some just don't have the social skills to try and convey their message properly and seem to be come across as the car mechanics of the corporate world, anything that is asked for is repiled with a sucking in of teeth and it will cost you. I have been on both sides of the fence and understand the frustrations but explaining why you can't have the latest toys or something else is conveyed as I can't be bothered really, you just would not understand or the worst I have come across is trying BWB (baffle with Bulls..t)

In the last eighteen months I have had repeated experience of IT departments making changes to systems that impact on the way I and others deliver our part of the business without any consultation.A good friend who is an IT professional states that it is typical of IT departments to have a narrow focus on the hard technologies and fail to consider the operational aspects and the outcomes for their clients (i.e. their colleagues). He summed up by saying it's all for their convenience not yours.So if you think the end user is ill informed maybe the best thing to do is start communicating that way you will understand their business and them yours.

And BTW, I was an IT manager in a large UK media company for several years.1. An IT project to implement Citrix - "of course InDesign, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Illustrator will work perfectly"2. "It's not possible to get your Outlook email on a smartphone"3. "You might need CS5 to open RAW files, but you can't have it because we only use XP" 4. The low priority fault you log on a Monday becomes mission-critical by Wednesday as deadline approach5. "There's nothing wrong with my printer driver, the print-queue has stalled" and no amount of VNC fannying around on my PC will fix it6. "I can't tell you my PC name (it changes at each login) my computer has frozen7. Guess what, modern websites don't work on IE6, 7 or 88. Who thought it was a good idea to set a graphic artist's swap drive to be hosted at a remote data centre9. Not fulfilling a request for 6 months but ringing me every month to see if I still need it doesn't make it go away10. Operator work-arounds because of IT inefficiency should not go into the successfully completed column11. Buying new laptops, with 8gb of RAM for video-editing then downgrading them to XP makes no sense12. Honestly, MacBook Pros ARE better for video-editing & cheaper too13. On what planet is a 17" laptop weighing 4kg or so and a nearly 1.5kg power brick portable?(oh and a battery life of less than a football match, that was a great call)14. Ever thought about consulting users about what they need/how they work, rather than imposing a one-size-fits all solution?15. Find out what the users in your organisation do and get someone who speaks the same technical language16. Take a real "how can I help" approach as opposed to a "how do I get you off my back" approach17. Individual IT staff should take ownership of a problem and constantly communicate with the user18. Don't tell a user with a knackered PC to report a fault either via email or via the self-service application on their machine19. Understand that we know what we want to do and how to do it better than you do20. Don't have a list of priority users, that just happens to be senior management, who can jump the queue to get things done - I know it makes you look good but boy does it breed resentment to see the boss getting a new PC while our graphic designers are still on Celerons with 1gb of RAM

Having spent many, many years working in various IT support roles the biggest problem faced by IT departments is the retards that all the other departments choose to employ.Computers are extremely powerful but complex tools capable of performing many tasks very quickly. The average user is stupid.No joking, I had a user phone up saying their computer was broken: they could type in their User ID fine but whenever they tried to type in their password all that came up was stars.And there's a woman at my current place who raises a IT support ticket every time she needs to copy a file from one place to another.It's not all the IT support department's fault.

The main reason no one like them is there default setting of you can not do instead of how can we make it work for you.When ICT departments and the main organizations get there head arould this then things will changeThat why in the NHS any one that can afford it is say $$$$ off to the ICT staff and buy and using there own Apple kit off the N3 networkMark

IT Support are the front end of IT most users are too thick to realise this often it is inept management that run the business who have asked IT to do impossible tasks they see IT as a cost. I would like to see the two above users try to work one week in IT they have no idea.

I would also add, i don;t work in IT, but IT things are my hobby sort of.. so i sort of speak the same language, and sometimes there is that belief from other staff that IT is so simple and that it takes little or no time to do everything, so when IT are asked to do soo much in a very limited time frame, they get blamed for not completing it. Funnily enough, since i am knowledgeable in some IT aspects, most of the things i can do myself so the IT at my company love me since i usually only bother them only if something is actually wrong, and the users actually do not understand the benefits from an upgrade or other IT things that are being done in the background.. I would say, attempt to have 0 IT in the company and lets see if you can go one hour without hitting a glitch...

I work as an IT Manager but not in our IT Dept, and have to manage several high priority pieces of specialised software.Every time we have an update to one of the software packages, I have to log a call with the IT Dept, who eventually turn up 2 weeks later (software installs are considered low priority).I then have to stand over the IT techie, and tell him what to do.Most IT Depts think that unless you work in the IT Dept, it is impossible for you to know more about IT than them.I know some companies that are moving away from a central/corporate IT Depts, and employing IT staff directly in their own Depts to overcome the condescending/controlling attitude

Your comments tend to be how the typical IT Dept person thinks.This is not how you should be thinking.IT Depts are there to serve the other Depts, whether the user is deemed a "retard" or not.That is you job.Without them, you have no jobInstead of demeaning users and bracketing them as "retards", put all your efforts in trying to help and educate them better, so that they don't have to call you as often

God help the people that you serve from your IT Dept.So, users are "retards" are they? You're a trained accountant? YOu can colour correct and handle muti-layered Photoshop documents? You can generate artwork in Illustrator?I thought not. You have a very narrow skill set and are there to do a specific job - support the people who do the real work in your company. I've yet to see an IT Dept contribute positively in any way to a company's bottom line. It may reduce costs, though that's arguable in many cases, but it produces nothing, it sells nothing and generates no revenue.You're the hired help for those "retards" and the sooner you understand it the better for everyone.

It goes both ways - a boardroom with respect for what IT entails should be willing to hire people of sufficient competence to deserve that respect. In this particular utopia, not everyone currently working in IT will have a job.

Coincidently a similar discussion appeared last night on r/tfts, I'll copy in the response I think best summed up my opinion from an IT perspective view--------------------We don't think users are complete idiots for not knowing how to set up a server rack, or configure their WAN, or setup their raid array.We think users are idiots when they don't understand what the start menu is, how to type in a web address, or what right-click means.We understand not everyone is an IT person. What we don't excuse are users who RELY on their computer every day of their career, and don't understand the simplest of tasks.I use my car every day to get to work. I am not a mechanic but I understand how to put gas in my tank, change my oil, change a tire, and how to check fluids. I am not a carpenter, but I no what side of a hammer to use, how to use a level, a tape measure, and how to use a saw. I'm not a doctor, but I know to drink more water and maybe some Tylenol for a headache, how to stop bleeding of an open wound, how a tourniquet works, and not to mix pain killers and alcohol.We aren't asking you to be super advanced with computers. Just learn your basics to do your job. That is 99% of our complaints. We understand our job is to support the users, but turning on someones computer, or how to click File > Save, or what the start menu is is basic stuff.I don't go to my mechanic and have him put gas in my car. I don't get a carpenter to hang a picture. I don't have a doctor treat a papercut.I learn the basics so I don't waste my time nor the professionals time. I would expect users to do the same.I see a lot of people saying we expect too much and to be happy because it keeps us employed. Well when you have users who don't bog you down with simple shit, you get proactive IT staff that get to work on minimizing downtime and upgrading the infrastructure.TL;DR: Stop pampering ignorant users and blaming techsupport for expecting too much of users.Happy Thanksgiving IT.

Unfortunately the article only represents issues surrounding IT in large organizations. People in general don't like bureaucracy, but that is what you get in large organizations, IT or otherwise. That's why I choose not to work in them. In general, the IT managers employed in such organizations are not IT people, hence they don't know how to integrate IT and other departments. The user's main contact with IT is the helpdesk, which is often an outsourced entity that could care less about the company and its users. These are often the major factors that cause grief with users.In the small to medium business world, IT is a very different animal. As the IT manager (with one programmer), I have the traditional IT duties, but also do a lot of things such as project management (IT and non-IT stuff) and strategic planning for the company as a whole. Users are more integrated with what is going on in IT in this scenario. They are familiar with the technologies that are in use, why they were chosen, and had a say in their selection. A more informed user is a better client. It is a culture of what can IT do to support the company. But at the same time, with IT significantly involved with company operations, we still get the blame for everything, even non-IT stuff. As a result, when someone screws up in shipping, manufacturing, or customer service, it becomes IT's job to fix it. As a result, IT becomes the company babysitter, having to stay on top of everyone to make sure they are doing they're job correctly and backstopping them when they don't. So IT tends to get the short end of the stick regardless of the company culture. That is why many IT folk have the attitudes that they do. 90% of issues created by end-users are almost always issues of commonsense. Something that is extremely lacking in society today.

In IT its very common to surrender to a syndrome I like to call the Superiority Virus. The network group makes fun of the DBAs for accusing us of imaginary latency, the sysadmins think the network team is full of knuckle-dragging simians and the security team behaves like rock stars playing stadiums while everyone else is just a cover band. Ultimately, no matter which team were on, many of us succumb to the tribalism of, Im smarter than the stupid user. We seem to forget that users and organizations full of them pay our salaries. They justify our existence and without them, wed be like chauffeurs driving empty limos.Id like to propose a truly radical concept, especially because Ive been just as guilty of this sectarian mindset. Users arent stupid; they just want to get on with their lives. If the advent of personal computers and the explosion of the Internet were supposed to be the great democratizers, then why do IT professionals frequently behave like some kind of ruling elite? When the infrastructure sees itself as more important than the human beings or business it serves, it turns into HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey.As engineers we can easily get caught up in the coolness factor of technology. Many of us used to take things apart to see how they worked when we were kids. We were the ones who drove our parents crazy with why storms. We pissed off magicians, because we didnt believe in magic, we wanted to know how they did the trick. This mindset has helped create some wonderful innovations. But when we start to see technology as the end and not the means, it becomes little more than mental masturbation.Do you have to understand the details of internal combustion to drive a car? When you take it to get an oil change, does the mechanic make you feel like an idiot if you dont know how an engine actually operates? Thats the beauty of technology when its really good. It just works, enabling you to focus on something bigger and more important. When IT professionals forget this, thats when they become an obstruction to progress, in love with their own hype, convincing themselves that users are stupid. Maybe we should all take a cue from Neil Gershenfeld of MIT, one of the apostles of personal fabrication. He started a class at MIT called How To Make (almost) Anything and was surprised to see people without traditional technical backgrounds filling the class. Instead of being consumers, they wanted to be creators and the results were truly astonishing. The Fab Lab became an international movement with groups all over the globe using fabrication and technology to explore creativity and solve real-world problems.Im going to offer the following challenge: try to see the big picture of how youre enabling people to do their jobs and enhance their lives. They will become your partners, providing you with a sense of purpose and vision. This is the ultimate cure for burnout. Its guerrilla computing, truly revolutionary and radically transcendent. Volunteer or contribute to your local Fab Lab and hardware hacker space. Get people excited about the infinite possibilities for technology improving their lives and the world.The message coming from the Fab Labs is that the other five billion people on the planet arent just technical sinks; theyre sources. The real opportunity is to harness the inventive power of the world to locally design and produce solutions to local problems. Neil Gershenfeld

"You have a very narrow skill set and are there to do a specific job - support the people who do the real work in your company."I wouold take very specific issue with IT people not doing "real work" - particularly as you state you were an IT Manager.I wonder how the cleaners, security, catering staff, etc would feel being told by the desk workers that they don't "do real work"? I also wonder what their attitude to their co-workers would be who exhibit such disgraceful attitudes?Based purely on that statement, I would say that as a manager you would have been a poor one - especially when one takes into consideration that you are talking about your own team(s).

Really enjoyed reading it and given everybody's reaction, it's obviously a subject everyone who either works in IT or has to work with an IT department feels very passionate about.Having worked in IT myself for the last 17 years in desktop support, network support, as a consultant, project manager and more recently as a business analyst, I can understand and agree with almost everything everyone says up there as I have worked in IT and then as a user of IT.It does come down to what the business wants but also what IT can provide given its resources.Ultimately it all has to start right from the top - the CEO. If a CEO is complaining about the poor IT function that they have, then they're not doing their job properly. They should be FULLY supporting the IT department and give it as much importance as all of the other departments.First of all you have the company mission statement and strategy. Once these have been clearly defined, the IT strategy should be next, which should be closely aligned to fit with the company's strategy.This will start to indicate which direction and shape the infrastructure should take and what would be best-suited for the IT systems.You then start to split IT into two parts - the ever-evolving roadmap of where the IT systems should eventually end up (what sort of architecture) and the day-to-day business as usual stuff.With the former, this is usually done as a series of projects, each with their own budget. With the latter, you have the day-to-day firefighting support and maintenance.From personal experience, the BAU desktop support is utterly thankless and it's very easy to become dispirited and unmotivated - that's the challenge of the IT manager to perhaps sweeten the thankless tasks of support with perhaps giving the IT staff the opportunity to work on different projects.To delve into more detail, in a bigger company you have Service Delivery Management that would set the Continuous Improvement Programme for IT systems that need upgrading, look at IT processes and how they can perhaps be streamlined to be more efficient (particularly if they involve parts of the business for approval, e.g. procurement, new starters, etc).It's such a massively complicated subject that the old "IT department" model simply does not work anymore. Senior execs have to realise that to have a fully-functioning company, they cannot skimp out on investment and training - and it's not about having the latest technology that they can brag to other execs in other companies about, but having an efficient, well-oiled service that ticks along happily and is given the same recognition and support as all of the other parts of the business.Anyway, that's my 0.02 worth ;^)

Yes, most users have the aptitude of a wet rock. That said, supporting *Them* is the job of IT. Pride yourself on legendary support and you'll help change the perception. Being the condescending asperger's type of professional will do nothing but raise the ire of your colleagues toward you. I have seen departments squabble over little things like HD replacements and memory upgrades. Always err on the side of spending the 100$ and satisfying the end user. You'll find your life MUCH easier. Also, being honest goes a long way. If you're not going to be able to respond to their ticket for three days, tell them, and tell them who they need to contact to escalate. Users are as cool to you as you are to them.

Executive management are the people to blame for ALL the above issues.They know nothing about IT and don't support it / provide enough resources to it.I am in a small company and its terrible. So business size isn't the main factor here.@DaveAndrews1 you are no better than the person youre responding to. In fact you have no business being here.'IT wouldnt have a job if it wasnt for users' - RUBBISH - the business exists because of IT allowing it to function more efficiently.Reddit123 makes an excellent point. And users are stupid if they cant remember how to right-click after Ive shown them.

Hmm, interesting topic. I head an IT support group in an academy (fancy name for a school) and unfortunately there are users who would try the patience of a saint.We had one user who came and demanded access to cookies and proxy settings on their supplied laptop. As laptops are locked down we wondered why the user needed access to these features. What was soon evident was that the user didn't have a clue what either cookies or a proxy was. It seems that when trying to access Facebook at home the browser had reported it needed access to cookies and proxy settings needed changing. Of course we sent this user on their way.It really does make me think when a user logs a call and you investigate and the device isn't plugged in or switched on. I can only think at home they are sitting in the middle of a load of non functioning devices.

Not sure which decade the author of this article is living in. Have you ever worked for a technology company? This type of company is not only comprised of an IT help desk. In fact, all departments are there to support IT and the technology. The help desk is just one small part of the operation. You do still get a bit of old school attitude from long in the tooth management, who tend to look at everyone as a tool, but these are dying out and generally speaking there's a lot of respect for IT professionals.

In my experience (having attended courses and meetings with colleagues across several business functions including IT) some of the IT staff leave a lot to be desired. In all organisations though you will get a mixture of abilities and personalities (sadly some appear to lack both!). For IT staff to describe users as "retards" reinforces the reasons why people hold them in such little regard. You are in a service industry, the customer is always right!

IT Departments are certainly misunderstood by many, but the misunderstanding largely comes from ignorance. That cuts both ways. Non-IT staff need to appreciate that IT Departments need to be run efficiently, within a budget, to a given set of guidelines while maintaining a standard of service delivery. Help Desk support aside, they also need to spend time maintaining and upgrading existing systems, as well as planning ahead to make sure that systems working well today continues to do so in the future. On the flip side, IT staff need to have a good understanding about what their non IT colleagues are doing, how they work, and the daily chores and aspirations that they have in order to offer a good service. IT departments have a poor reputation, and conversely IT staff have low opinion of other staff, when this level of collusion is not in place.Any company that keeps it's IT in the basement, either literally or proverbially, needs to get over the idea that the IT Department are simply a maintenance department. IT are not (solely) a service industry, and staff are not clients. From a help-desk perspective, IT tech's are, or should be, facilitators who 'help' their non-IT colleges. That doesn't mean they should be expected to follow every whim with a grin.Martin Ferguson offers the view that the role of the IT department needs to change. I would suggest that the role the IT department plays in a company is largely dependant on the role it's asked to perform, and the level of support it's provided with from senior management. CEO's who expect IT departments to be 'boiler repair men' will get exactly that. CEO's who have higher expectations, and support their IT departments accordingly will have strategic partners instead of over-worked, stressed out, stroppy fire-fighters.

"You are in a service industry, the customer is always right!"Except if the customer is rude, insulting or abusive, the individual reserves the right to refuse service. Quite a few customers in my experience (of my previous jobs in pubs, clubs and shops plus observations of fellow customers now) need to be sharply reminded that "customer" is not a master and that the "employee" is not a slave.I have seen and personally experienced shocking behaviour from some customers who seem to think "the customer is always right" means "I can insult and physically assault you and if you complain or do anything other than take it, I'll kick up a fuss and get you sacked for being impudent".

The focus of the article is on the operations/ help desk support area of IT. In this area there is no upside. If you do a great job; well, that's your job. Any problems or mistakes, then you're a failure. There is nothing you can do except try to provide the best service you can afford.If you want plaudits you need to be working with the business to help it succeed in the market (and, no, I do not mean implement a CRM). Only when you make a positive difference to the org's strategy and success will IT be valued. SimpleI wrote about this in a short book called "The IT Value Pyramid" which you can get at www.totallyoptimizedprojects.c...

...and of course I'm always in a bad mood at work. I've sick to death of clients/ customers coming in asking STUPID STUPID STUPID questions! In my whole 7 months of working as a Tech in a local Computer shop for businesses and customers and out of the questions I have been asked in my time, probably only 3 have been decent easy questions and one of them was from a secret shopper! People are ignorent, and seem to expect one to immediatly fix their computers when the only information they give me is "it won't turn on" seriosuly, espically when it's down the phone. Also, another thing which winds me up are people questioning my knowledge of computers and coming up with sexist remarks to me "I'd rather speak to a male" "shouldnt you be busy painting your nails?" . Yes, so what if I am a 15/16 year old girl, doesn't automatically mean I no nothing. Customers come into my shop and ask me if I can actully fix computers (one came in one time and asked that.... as I was building a computer on the desk in front of them). If you ask me, the problems not with IT departments but actually with the ignorant customers/ collegues out there.

1.Anyone with any IT knowledge knows that those apps wouldn't work, or would perform well in a citrix environment. And yet the IT Dept did it2. It's a security policy of most companies to not allow you to get your e-mails on your personal phone. Company supplied smartphone & others do have email on theirs - so a blatant lie3.no license for the application. No, CS5 requires Win7 to run, no CS5, no RAW files, no photos for publication4.While this maybe "mission critical" to you, it may not be according to your IT departments definition.Publishing company, only one deadline matters - hitting the print slot5. but it is their job to verify with their own eyes what the problem is before escalating to another group.Fair comment, however when I "shoulder tap" the helpful guy it's sorted in minutes not hours6. No, it doesn't, your IP address might change everytime you log in, but your PC name does not. Errm yes it does - today its S**P**69, yesterday it was different7. "i don't like this old browser"Nope, websites that are essential to the business (including our internal payroll/holiday/expenses sites) simply don't work and that's unnaceptable8. Who thought it was a good idea to set a graphic artist's swap drive to be hosted at a remote data centre. And yet the IT Dept did it9. Would you rather be ignored?No but the specific case was that someone in IT deleted 2-3,000 Photoshop documents (layered, colour corrected etc) frome where we had been told by IT to store them, after 6 months of calling me to see if I still wanted them (of course I did) they told me it was too late to restore from backup - so where else in any company would someone not be sacked/disciplined for destroying comapny property?10. Operator work-arounds because of IT inefficiency should not go into the successfully completed columnLog fault, nothing happens, apply sticking plaster to get round the problem. How can IT claim they resolved the problem?11.Perhaps they were purchased with a future OS upgrade in mind?Nope, no plans for Win7, and what use is 8gb under XP, plus CS5, Premier Pro won't work on XP12. a few people who edit videos. Publishing/Multimedia company - it's our core business13. Better/Lighter/Faster things, cost more money. See above - they don't, my MacBook Air at a fraction of the HP monstrosity edits photos/videos more efficiently than our HP monstrosities. Cost savings? I think you'll find the cost of employees' time outweighs any claimed IT saving14. satisfy each and every single need, No, we employ many people in each function (100+ photogs in the area that I'm responsible for) that seems to be significant team that needs its requirement addressed15. So is IT then 100% responsible for hiring interpretersWell yes, if they're going to impose the structure, it is their responsibility to communicate. If I make a decision that impacts others it's my job to explain it to them16. type who is more likely to refuse the helpNot at all, but I am the type who sidesteps the IT structure and will go directly to someone I know can solve the problem17. Please #9 and pick a side.See my answer above - 6 months, I'm not changing my mind, sort it out.18. "My PC is knackered". Let the person do their job.OK, let me rephrase: I have a no-working PC, how can I use the programme to report it? and yes I've had that advice in the past19. Then why would you be calling? You have just listed 20 things, yet you don't need help? I meant we, the users, know what we want to achieve - telling us that we should be doing something else is unacceptable. I'll refer to the RAW comment earlier, it's not your job to tell us that a JPEG will be fine, it won't & guess what, as photographers/Designers we know it won't & why it won't.20. As a service department, our mandate would be to service whatever is technologically possible... You really don't think that the CEO of your organization having "laptop issues" could be slightly more than important than a graphics designer missing a deadline because their swamp file is slow?Well, having worked for the Mirror Group IT Dept, I know that there was list of top users who had even the slightest request/fault promoted to the top of the list.And yes, that designer missing a deadline will be more important than a CEO laptop issue, most of the time - 1 minute late here can causes tens of thousands of dollars of damage to the business - late to the printers, late to the trucks, late to the outlest - overtime costs, extra trucking, missed sales, reduces audit, lower advertising revenue, immediate loss of sales, continued loss of sales, cancelled subscription...

@jontym I couldn't be bothered to read your rather long boring comments, you defined who you are with your comments "I'M GONNA FIRE THEM AND OUTSOURCE THE LOT!!!"go on then then report back here to tell us how it went will you?

MY STAFF ARE A COMPLETE WASTE OF SPACE! THEY DON'T DELIVER, THEY MAKE PROMISES THEY DON'T KEEP, THEY TAKE TOO LONG, AND CONSTANTLY COCK THINGS UP! THEY TACKLE WHAT THEY THINK IS "INTERESTING AND SEXY" WHEN WHAT THEY SHOULD BE DOING IS FIXING WHAT'S WRONG.I'M GONNA FIRE THEM AND OUTSOURCE THE LOT!!!I had a customer, Head of IS, say this to me once, when I was a salesman. I was selling services. We had technicians by the score, the best in the business. My customer thought his people were rubbish, and was looking to outsource what they did to us.......so we began to dig.First of all, the people weren't rubbish, they were highly competent. They had a lot of work to do, and were doing their best to do it. A mixture of projects and reactive work (problems, queries, minor upgrades etc.). So what was wrong?......................The answer was approach. For instance they would receive a problem and work on it. If it was a tricky one, it might take a couple of days. One thing was for sure, if it was tricky, they would fix it as quickly as it could be fixed, and my company couldn't have fixed it any quicker. Other problems sometimes had to wait if there was a tricky problem, quite rightly.They also tackled the project work well. They would apply the right people, get on with the project, and make sure it didn't compromise the business or any other projects. They also did the right thing and held the projects when they needed to apply some focus to a knotty problem. Sometimes suppliers let them down, as they do in any company. Sometimes, an issue would arise in the middle of the project that wasn't envisaged at the beginning. Again, they would conscientiously work their way through the issue, and deliver a quality result.So what was wrong?......................We struggled long and hard with this, and finally sorted out what was going on after speaking with the technicians and the users and the helpdesk. It all boiled down to customer perceptions. We're talking about internal customers in this instance i.e. "The Business". This was a manufacturing company, so the perceptions were those of the Accounts Department, Quality Control, Process Engineering, etc. etc. It would be different departments here (Actuarial, Property etc.) but you know what I mean.Looking at problems, a call would be placed, and someone would take it on. Someone would work on it, and eventually solve it. It might take a couple of days, because it was a difficult one. IS would then close the call, and move to the next one. Meanwhile....... Joe the user would perceive that he placed a call, about something which was stopping him work. He can't do his job until the problem is fixed. The helpdesk operator may have told him that someone was working on it, but he's not convinced. None of those guys in IS called to discuss the problem, and the boss is getting agitated about that report that should have been complete today. 5pm comes and goes and Joe decides to go home. Surely it'll be fixed in the morning? 10am the next day, still no call. Obviously no one is on the case, so Joe calls the help desk to complain. The IS guy phones eventually to say he's working on the problem, and actually has the cheek to sound annoyed that he had to call at all. Joe reckons he has only just started working on the problem. At least someone is now. Finally at 3pm, Joe gets the call from the helpdesk to say his problem is fixed. "God knows how long it would have taken if I hadn't complained", thinks Joe.So what was wrong?.....Well, the IS guy felt he'd done a bloody good job. The helpdesk had done a good job too. All of the info he needed to progress the fault was in the call text when he looked at the helpdesk system, which meant he could get on with fixing it more quickly without ringing the user. Even though he stayed 'til 7pm on the first day, the user had the cheek to ring him direct to hurry him up the day after. The IS guy had to research the fault on the web, and eventually had to ring the supplier, get a fix FTP'ed and test the change. He did do a bloody good job, trouble is he didn't tell the user.It would have taken 30 seconds to ring Joe to tell him he was on the case. He could have spent 30 seconds every 2 hours giving Joe an update. When he realised he couldn't fix the problem without the aid of the suppliers. he could have told Joe, and Joe would have felt that the IS guy was doing a bloody good job. He might even have told his boss.Instead he complained to his boss, who complained to the head of IS. The head of IS had actually had 3 such complaints already this month, and began to form his own view of his people. After all, if they say the service was bad, it must have been, mustn't it?So, what about projects?Well, the IS department had 15 projects "on the go" already. The head of the Quality Control department decided he needed access to a remote packaged application, that gave overall reliability stats on a host of components. The company had reliability problems with one of its products, and was beginning to get bad press in the industry publications. The Chief executive sanctioned the spend "on the nod", and told the Head of IS to get on with it. This was 15th January.The Head of IS told the technical manager, who allocated the project to one of his people, Jane. Jane already had 3 projects, some of which had a few issues. She thought it through, and decided to sort out the issues before starting the new project. The issues took 1 week, although she had thought they would only take 2 days, but that wasn't her fault - the suppliers messed her around quite a bit. Then she got started, and planned out the project. It took 3 or 4 meetings with other technical specialists and suppliers to ensure everything was taken into account, but eventually the plan was created. The application would be available on 4 weeks time, it was now the end of January, so the application would be ready by the end of February.People began work, then there were 2 major impact problems which took masses of IS resource to fix. They were fixed, but the ramifications meant that most projects didn't progress for a week. The end of February came and went, as everyone worked hard to get the system ready. In the 2nd week of March, the new application was about to go live. An unforseen problem took a week to resolve, and then the users were unavailable for testing for 2 weeks due to a factory shutdown. Finally the testing happened, everything was fine, and the application went live in the 2nd week of April.The IS people had dealt with all sorts of issues and problems along the way. They had done the best job that could be done for their customer, and got the project in pretty damn quick, considering the circumstances. All the customer saw was that the application was a month and a half late, and had taken an outrageous 3 months in total. The Head of Quality Control complained to the Head of IS, and was particularly nasty in copying a memo to the Chief Executive, which he felt was the right thing to do bearing in mind that the adverse publicity situation was getting worse (Nobody told Jane that this application was top priority). The Head of IS added this project complaint to the others that he had, and continued to pine for the day when he could outsource the function.At this point, I decided to forego the sale of outsourcing services, and help this company to recognise what a great IS department it had. I brought in some business process consultants, and we came up with 6 basic points that turned the situation around in 3 months. The Head of IS was the most difficult person to win over. The points were simply things that IS people could to do to help their customer perceive their actions correctly:1Make sure you understand the priorities of the tasks in hand. If you don't ask your manager. If you are a manager or team leader, make sure you communicate the priorities, and keep on communicating them all the time.2. Do it now, if possible, not later. Especially if it's high priority.3. In any implementation at any level, it won't be alright on the night. Assume it won't, and take as many steps as possible to minimise the impact of that as possible.4. Mistakes are OK, IS is full of human beings. (The same mistake twice may cause a sense-of-humour failure, though).5. Keep your promises, if you can't because of something out of your control, tell your customer. 6. Communicate with your customer too much. Tell them what you are going to do, what you are doing, and what you've done. Always. If you don't do 1-5 above, do this.This is a true story, although it has been "fictionalised" slightly to protect the guilty and make the point more concisely. I hope you identify with the above, and buy in to the six points, which may sound cheesy, but are highly effective.So what happened next?......Well the situation did turn around in 3 months. However, at the beginning some of the IS staff were very defensive, some stressed that they did most everything covered in the 6 points. We carried in pushing them, and gradually, people started seeing the difference, in IS and the business. The company now sells its IS services to other companies.Hope you enjoyed this little tale. How much of it do you think applies to us?